P. G. Wodehouse based his character Psmith on Rupert D'Oyly Carte, a hotelier and impresario he had known at school. Psmith is an unflappable, monocled eccentric who gets drawn into improbable and sometimes criminal scenarios. The line Elementary, my dear Watson is often attributed to Sherlock Holmes, but it first appears in a Wodehouse novel, where Psmith says it in Psmith, Journalist (1909). Leave it to Psmith (1923) is the most popular Psmith adventure, a crossover that brings him into the Blandings Castle world. Wodehouse wrote more than ninety books over a long career, and his style is often called a musical comedy without music.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.